Sheldon community history : Sheldon, N.D. centennial, 1881-1981, June 26-27-28

• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: North Dakota State Library
• Subjects: Fuller; Olden; Percy; South Road; Watkins; eskimo*
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndsl-books/id/44171

SHELDON The following is a letter written to me as the historian for the Sheldon Centennial Book about the life of Elizabeth Smith Bost while she lived in Sheldon and grew up to graduate here in 1932. November 9,1980 Gradena, California Dear Alice, Go___. May I call you Alice? It is such a pretty name and has always been a favorite of mine. I have been thinking of Sheldon quite often since I received your letter, and thank you so much for writing. I think I am finding myself In the same position in which my husband was in a few short years ago. We had stopped over at his home town of Warsaw, Mo., on a vacation trip to Georgia. I had never been there and we had a delightful time visiting his old "haunts" and meeting and seeing friends of his peer group, but as Merrill said, "I came home to meet and talk with some of the old timers once again only to discover that now they are gone and that I am an old timer myself." Well, I am feeling that way, too, in looking back at the way things were and at the people who have told me little gleamings here and there of Sheldons' history. The old timers I knew are gone and it is very aggravating not to be able to reach out to the different ones and get a fuller information I'd like to have to send you. There are so many little things that were not so important in themselves but which added to the glamour as the tinsel adds to the beauty of the Christmas tree. The Pioneer town of Sheldon was a good town and deserving of her history. It would be Interesting to go far beyond my time and see how the town first started and grew into the town I knew. I can remember the old timers talking of Sheldon, Enderlin, and Anselm's histories and beginnings and growth, all three but it is too vague to recall. There Is quite a story there if it could be found. In olden times the south road entering' Sheldon was a beautiful tree-lined lane, with the boughs reaching across from each side and intermingling to create a beautiful overhead canopy of green with flecks of golden sunlight filtering through. To have never known such a lane is to have never known the real beauty of a country road. It was a long lane of about four miles. Sheldon was a pretty town with her beautiful trees and homes. Main street was the heart of the town, a business center that serviced the town, the community and all the farming area for miles around. There was no shop, trade or profession missing and complete furnishings for a town home or a farm could be found here. It was In Sheldon where my grandfather bought a piano for his daughter Minnie and it wasn't the only piano in the store; he had a selection from which to choose. There was a lawyer, a doctor, a fine drug store, and a printers shop where the town paper "The Sheldon Progress" was published on a weekly basis and if I remember correctly it came in the mail on Thursday. The thrill of getting the mail that day, everyone fighting over it to see who would get to read it first, and then having to wait an entire week before it came again. We took a daily paper from Minneapolis, too, but it was never received with the enthusiasm and expectancy that was accorded our very own Town Paper. It is always such fun to find a friend or a neighbor's name or even your own in the paper. The Progress was a good paper and covered the entire community quite thoroughly, with by lines from each separate and individual community which made up the whole area. There were by lines from Owego, Leonard, Venlo, Anselm, and Buttzville, perhaps others that I have forgotten. At one time I could have named each and every store in its proper place along the street. I still remember most of them, if not all, but not in sequence. There was Dr. Weyren's office, Mr. Opsal's law offices, the Rexall Drug Store and the famous Rexall 1c sales where everyone waited from one six-month period to the next. The one-cent sale was almost as exciting to the farming community as the 4th of July or Christmas, especially so after the Watkins man quit visiting the rural areas. And the introduction of the Eskimo Pie, the very first of ice cream novelties to be introduced to the nation was first brought to us at Rexall's Drug Store. It wasn't square in shape like it is now but was a chocolate-covered scoop of ice cream sitting proudly atop a wooden stick. Mmmmmmm how good it was! Then there was the Community Hall and the Sheldon movie house where I remember seeing Harold Lloyd and also Charlie Chaplin movies. I wasn't old enought to read the captions between the scenes but I enjoyed them all the same. There was Mr. Ostreim's Hardware Store, the Masonic Hall, Wesley Rite's Mercantile Store with the room in back that held the caskets and rough boxes. Then there was Jacob Kaspari's Grocery Store and Dave Callaghan's Butcher Shop. The old time grocery store also served as a general meeting place where friends gathered to visit and exchange news as they shopped and especially so on the weekends. In the winter months the grocery store was always warm and steamy and comfortable and the old cast iron, pot-bellied heating stove became the focal point for friends to gather about and visit as they warmed themselves on entering the store. There was always a cheery group about the stove on a cold winter's day. In comparison to our present day meat markets the butcher shop of yesteryear is quite an interesting and unique place of its own. In those early days the butcher shop was the only place where a person could buy meat and was called a butcher shop because the proprietor or owner was also a butcher. Sheldon had an exceptionally fine butcher shop that carried the freshest of meats at all times. Dave Callaghan knew his job and knew it well. When he ran low on meat he'd call on his farmer friends to check on what they had for sale and finding the animal he wanted he killed and dressed it out on the farm and carried the quarters of beef back to town with him. Mr. Callaghan had a gigantic big cooler in the back of his store where he kept the meat hanging with never too large a quantity on hand at one time, for there wasn't refrigeration in those days, not as we know it today. The cooler had to be kept cool with big blocks of ice. The show cases in the store from which the customers made their selections of meat were glass enclosed cases and were half filled with chopped ice to keep the meat cool and fresh. The meat was nestled down into the ice in white porcelain pans with ice between each pan so that it was kept cold from all sides. Meat was also "aged" in those days before ever being cut up and brought out into the market show case. It was impossible to buy a piece of meat until it had been aged for the proper length of time and this aging did produce a much tenderer as well as a tastier piece of meat Percy Foster center front as part of the Sheldon Comet Band. 132 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited in Multi-page TIFF Editor.